In what will be a major break with royal tradition, the Queen will not lay a wreath at the Remembrance Sunday service to honour fallen soldiers this November.

According to multiple reports, the 91-year-old monarch has asked her son Prince Charles to take her place at the Cenotaph in London on November 12, while she and the Duke of Edinburgh watch from the balcony of the nearby Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

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It's believed that an equerry will place a wreath on behalf of the 96-year-old Duke, who retired earlier this year.

[The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh attend the Remembrance Sunday service, November 2016]

Although the Queen has missed Remembrance Sunday memorials in previous years, it will be the first time that she is present at the service but does not lay a wreath herself.

She's been forced to skip only six services during her reign, including when she was on a trip to Kenya in 1983 and Charles stepped in on her behalf.

The Queen was also absent from the ceremony due to overseas visits in 1961, 1968 and 1999. The Duke of Edinburgh represented his wife when she was expecting her two youngest children, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, in 1959 and 1963.